A special commission of the Ministry of Defense handed over to the government the materials of the investigation of unsuccessful launches of the sea-based intercontinental ballistic missile "Bulava". Officially, the specific reasons for the numerous failures have not yet been announced, but Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has already stated that "the problem of unsuccessful launches of the Bulava missile lies in the assembly technology." Thus, the minister confirmed the previously voiced version of the reasons for the unsuccessful launches.
It should be reminded that the development of the Bulava missile began in 1998, and it should have been put into service back in 2007. But due to regular test failures, the adoption of the rocket into service was postponed indefinitely. A total of 12 launches took place, of which 5 were recognized as relatively successful, and only 1 - undoubtedly successful.
In the spring of 2010, an interdepartmental commission was formed to find the reasons for the unsuccessful Bulava launches. The commission is expected to present its final conclusions on May 30. However, it is unlikely that there will be something new in the conclusion - the main reason has already been repeatedly called a banal technological marriage.
For example, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who oversees the defense industry, said last year that everything is to blame for a "technological defect" that could not be detected earlier, since about 650 enterprises are involved in the creation of the rocket, and therefore to monitor the quality of all components of the rocket impossible.
The chief designer of the Bulava, Yuri Solomonov from the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering, stated that the range of problems is much wider. According to him, the main reasons for unsuccessful missile launches are low-quality materials, violation of production technology and inadequate quality control. In addition, according to Solomonov, for the successful production of this type of missile, about 50 types of materials are needed, which are simply not available in Russia. “In one case, poor quality materials are used, in another, there is no necessary equipment to exclude the human factor in manufacturing, in the third, inadequate quality control,” Solomonov explained in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper.
However, some observers note that some inappropriate innovations were made during the testing of the Bulava. Solomonov is blamed for abandoning the traditional Soviet three-stage missile testing system, according to which the first stage involves deep-sea bench tests, the second - ground tests, and the third - launches from a submarine. At the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering, it was decided to go straight to testing from a submarine. Such a step was reasoned by the fact that the Bulava is a marine analogue of the Topol, which is being developed at the same institute. This led to the fact that the data of real launches were replaced by mathematical calculations, which, according to some experts, could lead to errors.
Despite the obvious problems with the Bulava testing, Vice Admiral Oleg Burtsev, First Deputy Chief of the Main Staff of the Navy, said in July 2009: “We are doomed that it will fly anyway, especially since the test program has not yet been completed. "Bulava" is a new rocket, during its tests one has to face various obstacles, nothing new goes right away. "In confirmation of the vice admiral's words, it can be added that the predecessor of the Bulava - the R-39 missile, which is armed with the Akula nuclear submarines of the project 941, out of the first 17 launches "screwed up" more than half, but after improvements it was tested by 13 more launches and was put into service.
However, in an interview, Professor of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Petr Belov, questioned the need to revise the Bulava in its current form and revealed some of the underlying reasons for the unsuccessful tests:
- At one time, the project of a solid-propellant sea-launched missile was taken away from the State Missile Center. Academician V. P. Makeev, who was traditionally engaged in the creation of missiles for submarines, and transferred to the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering. MIT then seduced the Ministry of Defense by the fact that they already have a blank on the basis of "Topol", which only needs to be slightly modified, and it will be suitable for use both at sea and on land. But the idea of universality in this case is absurd.
In addition - what is much worse - the designer Yuri Solomonov, who took up the development, completely forgot about the state of our military-industrial complex and neglected all of its canons and traditions. He focused not on the country's capabilities, not on his own construction materials and did not take into account a certain degradation of the military-industrial complex, the lack of specialists, the loss of technology, etc. As a result, he drew a project that is impossible to implement in modern conditions.
One more touch: Solomonov in his book "Nuclear Vertical" boasted that only structural materials, which he included in the project and which are not produced in Russia, are fifty. Probably, there are also components that cannot be produced in our country. But this is absurd.
First, until now, there was a rule not to use foreign materials in domestic developments. After all, if these are structural materials, then their supply to Russia may be terminated at any time. If we are talking about component parts, then the technology is now at such a level that some bookmarks may well be built into them, which are unknown to the buyer, and which can be used against his interests. Secondly, to date, the institution of military representatives who controlled the process of production, debugging and testing has been completely and purposefully destroyed.
The imposition of these circumstances led to the fact that the project turned out to be extremely expensive. For example, since the rocket body should be as light and high-strength as possible, terribly expensive carbon-fiber reinforced plastics were used … These are the reasons why the project does not work out and is unlikely to work out. In general, our decision-making system in this area is very vague. I believe that the current outcome of the development has also been lobbied and known in advance. About who and how made these decisions, who removed the SRC them. Makeev, what motivated this is a separate conversation.
- So it turns out that the revision and adoption of the Bulava are inappropriate?
- Would this project be at least somewhat serious in terms of integral characteristics - cast weight, number of blocks, cargo-dimensional characteristics, etc. But the Bulava is inferior even to the American Trident I rocket, the first modification of which was adopted back in 1979.
The Bulava is said to have a short "active leg" of its trajectory (the first section of the path traveled with the engine running), which has led to a significant simplification of the task of intercepting this missile in the "passive section" that the missile passes outside the atmosphere. Experience has shown that the naval component of the American missile defense system does an excellent job of intercepting precisely in this area … That is, even if we receive this missile, which I personally consider unlikely, it will not enhance our nuclear potential in any way.
What is happening is all the more frightening since the latest START Treaty, which was signed by Russia and the United States, contains a provision on the obligation of the parties to exchange telemetric information. Despite the fact that it seems like both sides should provide information, only Russia will do it. The Americans are not developing and are not going to develop new missiles, but we are now suffering with this Bulava. The telemetry information that we will have to transmit under the contract will allow us to calculate the parameters of the so-called. unpredictable rocket maneuver. Telemetry has nothing to do with monitoring compliance with the provisions of the START Treaty: it is data on the state of the engine and other systems of the launch vehicle in flight. But all the telemetry data for the same Bulava and other missiles that are now being prepared for testing, we will have to transfer to the Americans. Dmitry Medvedev said that he and Obama know better than others what telemetry is, so this is a deliberate decision.
